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The election of 2004 is over, but the fight for public support for the War on Terror and the daily battles in Iraq continues. As long as our soldiers are fighting for our freedom abroad, the Bush administration must meet its concomitant obligation to sustain them by keeping the war popular at home.

But the Bush folks demobilized after November and are resting on their laurels. Meanwhile, the left has launched a powerful new offensive against the War on Terror by trying to convince Americans  and Muslims around the world  that there are rampant abuses at Guantanamo Naval Base where hundreds of terror suspects are being held without attorneys or trials.

If Bush is not careful, his entire administration  and the popularity of the war that has come to define it  will rest on the actions of some kid with a gun guarding some terrorist he hates in a dark jail cell at Guantanamo.

With terrorists trained to accuse America of abuse and religious desecration, and the left only too happy to report their charges, a new Abu Ghraib prison scandal erupt, with devastating consequences for the war's popularity.

America never loses wars on battlefields. We lose them in the streets, at home, when people turn against a foreign war. We had to accept defeat in Vietnam because the American public would not allow the Nixon and Ford Administrations to intervene to stop the North Vietnamese offensive of 1974-1975. We could not break the stalemate in Korea because public impatience with the conflict sapped our ability to pursue it vigorously. We almost lost the Civil War when northern animosity to the draft almost elected a Democratic candidate for president who probably would have capitulated to the demands for Southern independence.

Bush has the classic choice of any incumbent with a mess on his hands  he can be either the prosecutor or the defendant. He can either lead the hunt or offer his own scalp to his critics.

If his administration takes the lead  publicly, openly and enthusiastically  in investigating prison abuses at Gitmo, he will survive whatever emerges. If not, he will be on the griddle, answering each accusation of abuse and support for the war will go down the drain along with his credibility.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has proposed a high-level commission, armed with subpoena power, to investigate abuses at Gitmo. While the Army seems to be doing a good job of ferreting them out  most of the reports come from their investigation  only an independent panel will have the credibility to probe what is really going on. The left  and the Muslim world  will see anything less as a smokescreen.

The left is correct that the best way to stop these abuses is through judicial review and legal representation. But the administration is right that we cannot hinder our investigation of the shadowy world of terrorism by clapping all manner of procedural rules and restraints on our intelligence officers. So we should not give these foreign nationals whose only connection with us was to fire on our troops, lawyers.

But Bush must understand that only by beefing up the oversight by delegating it to a prestigious commission (like the 9/11 Commission) can he get ahead of the abuse story and save the popularity of the war.

Nearly 1,600 Americans have given their lives fighting terrorism. We owe it to their efforts to win on the battlefield not to lose public opinion at home. Bush needs to act before his presidency falls apart before his eyes.

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